Townsfolk Worry About the Future : Economic Slump Has Left Most Uruguayans Struggling to Survive

Miners who once worked the granite and marble mines around this picturesque area of rolling hills, yellow wildflowers and cattle ranches now ride buses four hours a day to work at a beach resort.

“I have to go where the work is,” said Juan Filano, a former miner who is helping install a tile roof on a luxurious home in Punta del Este, the Atlantic resort 62 miles south of Minas.

Economic hard times in Uruguay, a nation of 2.9 million people that once was called the Switzerland of Latin America for its progressive welfare system, political maturity and prosperity, have residents like Filano and sweet-shop worker Silvia Sotano worried about their future in Minas.

Little Is Left

“People say there are good jobs in Buenos Aires, or Mexico by the U.S. border. Then I could go to the United States. Maybe even marry an American,” said the 21-year-old Sotano.

Since most of the mines closed five years ago, little is left for workers except the popular Confiteria Irisarri where Sotano serves apricot sweets and egg candies. Across the street, taxi drivers sip tea in the shade and wait for riders.

Minas was at its economic peak when it exported marble to Italy. But then the marble mines closed for economic reasons, and thousands of the 48,000 residents were idled.

Now, the municipal park is in disarray. Cages that once held exotic birds sway empty in the wind, and the statue of independence hero Juan Lavalleja looks forlorn in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer heat.

Few Amenities

Many of the 34,000 residents left in Minas live in sparsely furnished homes without indoor toilets, television sets, telephones or running water. Family members take turns carrying buckets of water from the San Francisco River that runs through town.

Minas in some ways seems to be living in an earlier age. Old cars, including Studebakers and Model T Fords, rumble noisily through downtown. The movie “Towering Inferno” was playing recently at the Monumental Cinema.

Many workers chose to move to Maldonado outside Punta del Este or to Montevideo, the capital and the country’s financial heart 75 miles to the southwest.

Punta del Este is the economic jewel of Uruguay now, its fine beaches attracting 200,000 visitors a year, most during the December-March summer when the city’s population triples to 120,000 to become South America’s jet-set capital.

$5.4-Billion Debt

Outside of Punta del Este, Uruguay has little now to distinguish itself from other struggling Latin American countries.

It owes international lenders $5.4 billion, perhaps the highest foreign debt per capita in the world. In November, Uruguay refinanced $1.78 billion of its debt to make ends meet.

Uruguay’s financial history since the 1950s has been marked by economic stagnation, loss of markets for agricultural exports, rising costs of social programs and imported coal, timber and petroleum products.

Uruguay continues to be hurt by economic events worldwide, including low commodity prices and protectionist trade by the European Economic Community that reduced meat and grain exports.

Inflation Has Continued

Uruguay also has suffered from a deterioration of economic conditions since 1981 in neighboring Argentina and Brazil, its most important trading partners.

Inflation has continued in the 1980s, with the rise in the cost of living in 1987 averaging 60% compared to 71% in 1986.

The government has tried to implement a program to control the economic slide and the public sector deficit, but workers’ declining wages have sparked unrest. The minimum salary is the equivalent of $83 a month and 9% of the 1.2-million-member work force is unemployed, according to the latest government statistics.

With these economic uncertainties, ex-miner Filano feels fortunate to have a job, but Sotano is unsure what Uruguay has for her.

“Perhaps it’s time for me to leave Minas,” she said. “Really, I have family here, but selling pastries is not my lifelong ambition.”